H A Pham | PubMed Health

PubMed2000

Perceptual deficits after lesions of inferotemporal cortex in macaques.

This study used a novel approach to examine a much studied question, the nature of visual deficits caused by lesions of the inferotemporal cortex (IT). Unlike many previous studies of IT lesions, we de-emphasized early, non-specific disruptions of testing caused by the lesions, and instead concentrated on permanent changes in thresholds. This approach produced unexpected results that suggest a re-evaluation of the traditional view of the role of the IT cortex in shape perception and such related visual abilities as perceptual invariances, visual grouping, the visibility of illusory contours and the performance of oddity discriminations. In addition, the measurement of stable, post-lesion hue discrimination thresholds gave us a different perspective on the severity of color vision deficits which result from lesions of the IT cortex. We found that shape distortion thresholds were not permanently elevated by IT lesions and, indeed, showed no greater transitory disruption than did other visual abilities. This result is inconsistent with the common view that IT is critical to shape discriminations. Two other visual abilities that would be expected to be disrupted by IT lesions - the visual grouping of misoriented line segments and shape invariances (failure of irrelevant stimulus changes to disrupt shape distortion thresholds) - were not affected by IT lesions. However, shape discriminations based on illusory contours and some oddity discriminations were severely and permanently affected. Our results also showed that IT lesions caused permanent, moderate to large impairments of color vision, but not color blindness. Bilateral damage to area TEO caused no disruption of performance on any of the abovediscriminations. Our results suggest that the IT cortex in macaques may be critical to the visibility of illusory contours and the performance of some oddity discriminations, that it plays some role in color perception, but that it is not essential for shape, grouping discriminations or perceptual shape invariances.

Animals↗

PubMedDate not supplied

V4 lesions in macaques affect both single- and multiple-viewpoint shape discriminations.

The role of cortical area V4 in complex shape discriminations was studied by testing the effects of V4 lesions in macaques on the ability to visually discriminate between images of three-dimensional (3D) objects from different viewpoints. Stimuli were presented in pairs in the lower left or lower right visual field quadrants about 4 deg from the fovea, and the monkeys judged on each trial whether the two views were of the same or of different objects. Object similarity was varied to determine a threshold shape difference. V4 lesions caused profound, retinotopic, and apparently permanent disruptions of discrimination, regardless of whether the images represented single or multiple viewpoints. In V4 lesioned portions of the visual field, monkeys could discriminate objects only when they differed much more grossly in shape than was true in control locations. These effects of the lesion were virtually identical for discriminations that had been learned before lesions were placed and for those learned afterwards. As in previous studies, V4 lesions elevated contrast thresholds by approximately a factor of two, but control observations showed that this was not the basis of the disruption of shape discrimination. Manipulation of cues to shape showed that in control locations, monkeys maintained excellent shape discrimination despite a variety of stimulus alterations, whereas in V4 lesioned areas their performance was easily disrupted. This finding suggests that V4 may support visual shape discriminations by facilitating the use of multiple visual cues. However, the fact that single-viewpoint and multiple-viewpoint discriminations were similarly affected indicates that the disruption was not specific to 3D shape discrimination, but may apply to a variety of subtle discriminations.

Animals↗